Chef John's gazpacho

Food wishes

I made this soup a few years ago and really liked it. I finally revisited it this tomato season. Maybe this time around, my tomatoes weren't as good as the first time. For whatever reason, the soup was not the home run that it once was. It was still tasty, just didn't knock my socks off. Maybe next summer, I'll try some other gazpacho recipes. I will say that the trick in the video for making concasse tomatoes is handy. And I like the incorporation of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and worcester sauce. They all add depth of flavor.

I'm not sure what the consistency of gazpacho is supposed to be, but one of my issues with this one was that it felt thin. I tried to thicken it by blending up all the chunky components with my immersion blender, but the soup still seemed a tad watery. Perhaps my tomatoes and cucumber had a higher water content than usual. Adding more olive oil could have helped. And I've seen that other gazpacho recipes blend some sandwich bread into the soup. Maybe this helps with the thickening. I'm not sure.